More Texans getting by with just a cell phone

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP)  Wireless phones were once seen primarily as a tool for workers on the go, but an increasing number of people are using them as their only phone.

Cynthia McKinley, a 23-year-old assistant manager of a Port Aransas restaurant, disconnected her traditional phone-line service last year.

"I'm in college and I work, so I'm hardly ever home," McKinley said. She couldn't afford to keep both her cell phone and home phone, she said, so she cut the cord on her wired home phone.

Others, like Renee Goff of Corpus Christi, keep a home phone only to connect a computer to the Internet. The 32-year-old mother of two and administrative assistant at a phone business said she has considered dropping her $50-a-month landline phone.

"I usually use my cell phone more than my home phone," Goff told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. "Everyone I see carries a phone. My daughter is in Brownies and all the mothers list their cell phone numbers versus their home phone numbers as contacts."

The percentage of people who rely exclusively on a cell phone is still small  about 3 percent of mobile-phone subscribers, according to the Yankee Group, a Boston-based technology research firm.

But it is expected to grow. In a survey conducted for the Consumer Electronics Association, three in 10 wireless phone users said they would give up their wired home phone before losing their cell phone.

The attachment to wireless phones has grown as they have shifted from a business tool to a personal device. The Federal Communications Commission  citing a survey in which 77 percent of wireless customers said they use their phones primarily for personal calls  said some consumers prefer their cell phones and no longer consider them just a complement to traditional service.

Mobile phones have been commercially available for nearly two decades, but the early models were heavy and service was both spotty and expensive. Cell service took off after 1996, when the federal government lifted a limit of two wireless carriers per market.

Cell phone service has also gotten cheaper  from an average monthly bill of $94.40 in 1998 to $68.10 by last summer, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

The rise of cell phones has affected landline phone companies in many ways, including a loss of long-distance, pay-phone and second-line service.

Forrester Research, based in Cambridge, Mass., predicts that over the next five years, 5.5 million consumers will give up second phone lines and 2.3 million more will drop their primary line.

Landline companies such as SBC Communications Inc. of San Antonio have responded by taking a stake in wireless companies.